xii, 250 pages : 21 cm

Renowned for her practice's exemplary results and low intervention rates, Ina May Gaskin has gained international notoriety for promoting natural birth. She is a much-beloved leader of a movement that seeks to stop the hyper-medicalization of birth--which has lead to nearly a third of hospital births in America to be cesarean sections--and renew confidence in a woman's natural ability to birth. Upbeat and informative, Gaskin asserts that the way in which women become mothers is a women's rights issue, and it is perhaps the act that most powerfully exhibits what it is to be instinctually human. Birth Matters is a spirited manifesta showing us how to trust women, value birth, and reconcile modern life with a process as old as our species

Includes bibliographical references

Foreword / Ani DiFranco -- The importance of birth and birth stories -- Second-wave feminism, birth, and motherhood -- Sexuality and birth -- A brief look at the history of midwives and medical men -- Technology and empowerment -- Gathering the power of sisterhood -- What's a father-to-be to do? -- My vision for the future -- The kind of obstetrics I miss, and its great defenders

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